Alright. So, here's the scoop. I'm going to be going to college for Game Design, and I've been working on plans for a video game. BUT, I need YOUR help to find out what exactly it is that attracts you to play Lineage 2.
I can't do this without your input, so please, tell me whatever it is that draws you to this game above every other MMO out there on the market.
The graphics/art , it's all wonderful, I'm not a fan of the "realistic" graphics a lot of mmo's are going in the direction of nowadays.
How it takes time to do stuff from leveling to crafting. It's a bore getting to max level and all you do is farm instances to get a drop with a drop rate of 10%. At least in this game, it'll take you a good long time to get to max level.
I love how you can nearly craft every piece of armor/weapon/jewelry. I say nearly, cause you can't craft boss jewels, perhaps one day they'll enable you to craft those jewels by getting key mats off of said boss mob.
well, I'm sort of thinking of making any class capable of crafting any item...so long as you have the necessary mats. (Don't want to spill too much info X.^ In case people try to steal it....not likely, but you never know.)
When I said anyone can craft, I meant, anyone can craft literally any item in the game by their self.
And "Why not just make an npc craft any item as long as you have the materials? Throw in a fee, this would also act like a currency sink." is something I'll consider quite heavily.
shouldn't have that, being able to craft any item in the game, could be a bit...bland. I like that you can craft the vast majority of the items; however, I also like that the boss jewelry is not craftable.
Something to encourage lore and raiding, is the promise of raid items, so, you'll need to make some items that could not be crafted. In L2's case, this is boss jewelry. I'd take a page from WoW, and make legendary items drop from a raid setting; however, to stop the power gap, legendary items wouldn't necessarly be better than the top weapons you can craft, would just have a differing look. Or perhaps a passive bonus to them.
I like it because it is not easy. Even after 3 years I still chose to play. However, I play for different reasons than most. I log in so I can think about work etc.
If I was to make a suggestion, follow the economy socialization that UO used to have in its first 3-4 years. UO had an economy that was no too difficult and it made for more PvP. There was not such a great feeling of loss if you dropped your equipment. And if you know UO, you dropped everything in that game. The community is what kept me in UO and it is what keeps me in L2. Also the PvP keeps me in it.
Clans/alliances, politics, interacting with people in general is what makes a MMO worth playing. Also as Carmaine and Yatta7 said, this game takes a lot of effort if you want to achieve something. I used to play Ultima Online for a long time and still consider it to be one of the best games I've ever played, better than L2 in many ways. L2 has pretty amazing graphics for such an 'old' game, but for me the graphics aren't that important(UO was pretty ugly :P). Content is what matters the most.
There is always some interesting place to play at. No matter what level. It could be the beauty of the place, or it could be the monsters, or it could be the drops/spoils. Usually, more than one of these factors is present in several different places.
As far as people, it also seems like there are plenty of like-minded people who are also good people in general.
Those are the 2 main reasons I stick with this game.
A coherent consistent world, awesome graphics, a high-enough level of sexiness, that it's challenging... but mostly once in game it's cuz I like the people I meet.
I'm afraid a lot of my motivations can be summarized by "It's not like WoW" but I'd rather have a piece of WoW's profits than lin2.
I'm curious what college/university has coursework in game design.
There's a ton of game design colleges. The one I'm looking at is Full Sail in Orlando, FL. And so far, I want to thank you all for your input, but don't stop posting X.^ If you like something about L2, anything at all, post it! I'll see what I can come up with without copying the original concepts.
Lol, nah. Not in college yet. I just want some ideas that I can work with to try to make the game in my head even better. Not better then L2 persay...just better then I percieve it.
There's a ton of game design colleges. The one I'm looking at is Full Sail in Orlando, FL. And so far, I want to thank you all for your input, but don't stop posting X.^ If you like something about L2, anything at all, post it! I'll see what I can come up with without copying the original concepts.
Hey! That's my college^^ I'm enrolled in the Bachelor's of Computer Animation. I was originally going to take the game design course as well but changed my mind after taking both programs' tours (something I highly recommend if you get the chance). It's a great school, though finding a parking spot is a often a hassle.
There's a ton of game design colleges. The one I'm looking at is Full Sail in Orlando, FL. And so far, I want to thank you all for your input, but don't stop posting X.^ If you like something about L2, anything at all, post it! I'll see what I can come up with without copying the original concepts.
There's a ton of game design colleges. The one I'm looking at is Full Sail in Orlando, FL. And so far, I want to thank you all for your input, but don't stop posting X.^ If you like something about L2, anything at all, post it! I'll see what I can come up with without copying the original concepts.
that place is ridiculously expensive.
It's not so bad if you think about it. You get a 4yr degree in about 2yrs for 60 g's. That's cheaper than most 4yr colleges. And, if you graduate, you can go back and audit courses free of charge.
- I like kicking PK [censored] with a character that looks like a cute 9yr old girl.
- Events! The squash event is a great way to get a group of people together and make some new friends. The bow that shoots hearts is a fun toy. I wouldn't have a full +6 set of reinforced leather if it wasn't for the events doling out scrolls.
- Sometimes, the most relaxing enjoyment I get from an MMOG is hopping in L2 and mindlessly murdering an entire field of mobs over and over.
personally, i LOVE the graphics...honestly i never was into computer/video games of any kind until i saw my brother dashing through a field, stalking up on his victims ((elder keltirs hehe)) and mercilessly giving it his all as he swung his sword at them while lifting his shield up at just the right moments to block their sharp blood-stained teeth from tearing through his bone plate armor and inflicting damage upon his body! As i soon learned when i joined the thousands of brave gamers here, it only gets more fascinating as you get into B and A grade and go hunting in the major catacombs and pole parties with fellow hunters!
hehe so maybe a little dramatized there, but in short the graphics and the beauty of l2 are the main reason for me ^^
i also enjoy all the things you can do in the world of l2. questing, seiging, raiding, hunting, pvp, buying, selling, the list goes on and on ofc. going with the seiging and raiding i like how not all the bosses and castles are exact duplicates of eachother. i also enjoy how diverse the hunting grounds are depeding on what part of aden you happen to be in
i dont think i saw this one mentioned but i could be mistaken...im sure i can't be the only one who enjoys putting on their new set of armor for the first time! :eek: so somewhere in the game falls fashion! :P and i know that applies for some guys out there, too. :)you can occasionally find someone who says "Well screw the stats, i wanna look good!" :D :cool:
also, the roleplay...im not a strong roleplayer, but sometimes i like to make short mini-stories with friends...on multiple occasions i have wandered around aden just taking screen shots in a variety of places ranging from newbie towns to primeval isle and then giong through and making a story out of them.
and the many different classes and races to choose from and how if you put a certain 2 classes together (example: dwarf poler and a SE w/ vr?) they mesh perfecly with the buffs and attacks creating a great xp party! :)
one last thing...i like the social emotes, how you can do simple emotes to go along with what your typing, i use them quite often...except on my female SE...the social waiting has yet to be used in an extremely populated area such as giran :P hehe ;)
the real hook of this game is the community, or the sense of family you get from playing with your online friends. it is a strong addiction. ive been away from the game for a while because my computer died. and have been thinking about alternate ascapes from reality. one time i stopped smoking weed so i could afford to keep playing lineage. been clean ever sinse but that should tell you that L2 is more addictive than a "Gateway Drug" and i think thats why most ppl play.
Hands down the most artistically good looking mmo currently available. Sure, there are mmo's with "technically" better graphics. Higher poly count, bump maps, fancy special effects, super high resolution textures, whatnot. But L2 is the only game where the *art* is really good. Millions of polygons isn't going to help you when your character looks like an action figure - no matter how realistic - and mountains look like melted plastic.
I like how it's a long-term game where you can never do everything or get all the "best" stuff. In other mmo's I instantly lose interest once I get max level or the best weapon.
It's one of the last mmo's with open pvp. I do not care for pve mmo's where pvp is "something on the side" which takes place in symmetrical arenas for those who want.
I like my pvp with cause, consequence, and politics. Pvp is what makes gaining levels and cash engaging, since it feels like I'm growing stronger for a purpose other than getting level 80 and quitting the same day.
Yeah, laugh at my class all you want, but I still find it the most fun even for pvp. I don't care about 1v1's, I didn't roll a WL in an open pvp game to specialize in 1v1's. I just wish they'd let me force-use my aoe's..
There are other games which have some or all of the above qualities, but reason I keep coming back to L2 over those is my WL. I'm just religious about melee aoe and L2 is the only game I can think of which has a class so purely specialized in it. Pre-NGE SWG's pikeman was close (and admittedly had way awesomer animations the L2's WL), but they have removed that class entirely.
I still get bored of L2 from time to time. Sometimes I just don't have any places to xp, sometimes there just aren't any of the right support classes playing (I'll sooner quit than make a buffbox), and sometimes I just run out of short-term goals to keep me interested on a day-to-day basis. I don't have any problems letting my account expire and having a few months break when that happens, but I always end up coming back.
its rather huge study of various psychology and sociology aspects of playing MMO games. the guy is doing that reserch for several years (started in 2003) and it includes many issues that might interest you - such as motivations of players atc.
1. nice gfx. yes, it's pretty nice when you run l2 with all best settings. my se (it's female) in majestic robes impressed me much first time when i used best gfx settings. :)
2. any other online games user can something against, but i like the world's gfx. it does not impact imagination with emo colors etc. i like it.
3. mostly free pvp. no comments. wow's players can never understand joy of pk spree and ability to kill anyone you want.
4. clan wars, politics and socializing. this is the main things making lineage2.
5. feel of freedom. you have to make your own decisions and no one can stop you unless you want to do that. and no one can force you unless you want to do that. you don't forced by design to complete stupid quest etc.
What I like most about L2 is that it is hard. You have to work to get ahead, and work pays off. Any changes that make it easier also make it worse, so that is why I don't like your "anyone can craft anything" idea. Heck, in the real world anyone can bake a readymix cookie, it takes a cook to bake wheat bread, it takes a trained cook to make a wedding banquet, it takes a French Chef to do a good boulloiunnaise. In other words, not everyone can craft everything in the real world and they shouldn't in games either.
Other things I like about L2: the people, the art, the clan system, the major differences in the races, the ability to be unique through subclasses and enhancements and weapon/armor choices and SAs and skill enchants and all the other little things. By the high 70's no two characters are the same.
The depth of the game. The more you play, the greater the challenges, unlike other games.
The politics, the friends, the random Pk'ing, all adds to the enjoyment.
Bottom line, being able to go off and kill someone any time any place.
There will be no kill-steals in this game.
Great thread. :) I really enjoyed reading through this. The graphics are what initially pulled me in to Lineage II, but then the entire PVP dynamic, castle sieges, and the people are what held my interest. When I accomplish something in Lineage II, my sense of accomplishment is much higher than it was in MMOs where everyone is max level and top-tier gear is commonplace.
Well, everyone, I must say, I was quite skeptical when I first posted this. Wasn't sure how you guys would react, but I want to thank all of you for your input. BUT, that doesn't mean you should stop throwing out ideas! This time, though, let's expand it. What do you WANT to see in an MMO like Lineage?
Could be anything at all. As you all know, every good MMO has room for improvement, and you never know...maybe some designers for L2 might read this and get a few ideas from you.
I think the one thing that I miss from Lineage 1 that Lineage 2 could take a cue from was seeing the GMs in game from time to time.
They would walk around in their special outfits and say hello from time to time. Also, haveing one summon one of the dragons into a town for the hell of it and killing it was great fun. Kind of brought everyone together.
I also miss the Heine event - LOL - Talk about messing up the economy for a long time, but that was one event that everyone remembered.
I do miss the extra exp weekends, or raised drop rate weekends. There was a lot of activity on those weekends, great deal of pvp and just general excitement.
Last, I miss the special clothing items that did something more than just m.def or p.def. They were not so rare that regular players couldn't get them, but it allowed you to "fix" certain flaws with certain toons and not have to gimp something else to do it.
Finally, and I know this will never happen, but boy it would be nice that when Lineage 3 comes out, you could transfer your toons and your account to the new server instead of starting all over again. I think that is what kills me most and will cause me to say, this will most likly be the last online game I get serious on again.
I agree with Zhanig that it would be nice to see some of those events come back, because i missed them and i only get to hear about how great they were xD
I think that somthing that you could improve is the amount of power 1 alliance/clan could get and then hold on to. right now, it is pretty easy for one clan to be dominant on my server and keep the power they get because the players they defend against show almost NO challenge for them. i think if i were to make a game i would have somthing ((besides other characters trying to gain power)) that challenges the clans and allies that DO make it to the top....maybe some event or NPC's seiging your castle? :eek:
and also a way to gain xp without the constant grind might be nice...after a couple hours of seeing the same mobs atk'ing you and falling to their deaths over and over it loses its addrenalin factor ((excuse any typos :P))
I just got a spark for an idea from reading your post, BackstabbingTH...not sure how I'll do it, but I'm going to try, if I do make castle seiges and stuff, to have different types of monsters (like Dragons) attack the castle that is closest to their lair. Reason I'm posting this idea is so maybe, if someon from the design team sees it, they can attempt to implement it in L2 to spice things up X.^
Comments on that idea are welcome, as well as new ideas to be thrown around.
What Heine event? :eek: Was that a L1 thing? I don't remember anything about any Heine event. And I haven't taken any real breaks since Heine was added :eek:
On topic: Just one thing I think was a really bad move on the devs' part; the shrinking alliances while making clans bigger. Clans that increased the max number of members really lost the "family feeling", to me.
That's the one thing I'm more than normally unhappy about :p
i started playing L2 because the game i was playing "Earth and Beyond" was cancelled so that EA could support the sims online. geez .... that was an interesting game
For me, the openness of the game-world is what attracted me to the game, the graphics were what hooked me, and it's the people that keep me logging in.
Outside of that, L2 offers little that no other game doesn't do better in some way, shape or form.
Atmospheric locations, detailed enviornment, detailed creatures, outside areas infested with creatures look really good and appropriate to those areas- unlike Eq2 where there was 10 dif kinds of creatures from purple to yellow spread out all over the place in areas, many, many cool dungeons, no stupid 'zones', the whole world is continually flowing
Player chartacters look great, although there is a lack of comparable customization of player characters physical appearance when creating a character - still even with the limited selection of variants, its enough for me. Armor and weapons look great, not just 'realistic' looking but really cool.
Combat is fun to watch, although there are difficulties in the click to move/attack and movement also has flaws where characters can get stuck from time to time, still overall I enjoy the combat. A HUGE plus for me is that specials are not rediculously overdone in this game unlike in many popular MMo's, they look cool to see executed and you arent forced to use 20 specials every ten seconds in a tough fight, which both Eq2 and Swg does, and I hated that.
Seems there is a ton of neat Pvp content too, from castle sieges to tournaments (although tournaments require uber high lvls), I like the castle siege concept alot, players actually get a huge tangible reward for their efforts.
Ive seen too the grinding can get tedious, and expensive in adena, but I saw this in Eq2 big time as well, im not so sure its any/that much worse.
Edit/ forgot to mention that the number 1 reason I wont play Wow is because of the blocky looking undetailed characters, to me an MMo's main quality comes down to the charaters themselves, and also I dislike the cartooney look of Wow in general.
definitely
- more outfits (no need of functionality, just for roleplay purpose) and various coloring
- various handable objects, that are not weapons (flowers, violin, flute, candle, feather, sendwich... it could be anything)
- more hairstyles, and what is missing much more - more hair colors (eg. light elves with dark hair)
- emotes with spoken words - and various voices, not just one voice for a race
...yap i am a girl an i am missing better customization of my characters.
from a game mechanic point of view i think there should be
- more different armor sets with different bonuses
- even the NG & D sets that have now no bonuses should have some
- more possibilities to make defferences between same characters (if two glads put on the same gear at same lvl, they are the same). that could be: skill that you have to choose from a set, and you can't have any other skill form that set.
Yes, Heine was a Lin1 event. Kill the mops and they dropped full drops, awsome rare items, etc. it was a mad house. People pk'ing others right and left. Best part was it was all underwater so if you didn't have the special herb or your underwater boots, you couldn't stay long.
It was probably the worst thought thru event and at the same time, the greatest event I was ever a part of.
What Heine event? :eek: Was that a L1 thing? I don't remember anything about any Heine event. And I haven't taken any real breaks since Heine was added :eek:
On topic: Just one thing I think was a really bad move on the devs' part; the shrinking alliances while making clans bigger. Clans that increased the max number of members really lost the "family feeling", to me.
That's the one thing I'm more than normally unhappy about :p
Another change that was for Koreans and did not suit us but was implemented anyway
Alright. So, here's the scoop. I'm going to be going to college for Game Design, and I've been working on plans for a video game. BUT, I need YOUR help to find out what exactly it is that attracts you to play Lineage 2.